Mary Ann
by dandelion fairy
Summary: Mary Ann, the White Rabbit's maid. You never thought much about her, did you? One day, she decides that there is more to life, and she is determined to find an adventure. Follow her through a world of wonder and danger as she meets her fate.
1. Chapter 1

_Mary Ann_

Mary Ann decided that she'd had enough. The ungrateful White Rabbit! Well, she was going to take what little money she had been paid from this tiresome job as a maid and… and go find an adventure! Yes. She was no housekeeper anymore! She was the great Mary Ann, and no one was going to stop her.

So that's just what happened. One morning, after serving the White Rabbit his very hurried breakfast, Mary Ann gathered up her things and set off. She did feel a bit bad about leaving without telling Mr. Rabbit, though, so she quickly scrawled a note and left it in his mailbox.

"Although I don't think he'll look in there, leastways," she said to herself as she put it in. "He's always in too much of a hurry to read letters and such."

Mary Ann was able to fit everything she was bringing into her apron pockets. This was due to the fact that she was an orphan, and she had never had very much. She took with her a bit of something to eat: cookies that she had baked herself, no less, taking care to ice them with the words _eat me_, so anyone who took one would see that they were not poison. Besides, no one really liked to eat Mary Ann's cookies because of the mishaps she'd had with the recipe. But hopefully these, and the few that she had left behind for Mr. Rabbit, would turn out alright. She also had a few crackers, and her money. That was all she needed, anyway. She turned one last time to look back at the quaint little house that she had served in for many a set of Thursdays before turning away and walking down the lane, feeling light and free.

"Now," she said to herself, "Now I will find an adventure for sure. This is surely the beginning of something much more than a mile high."

_Well? What did you think? It's an idea that's been bouncing around in my head for a bit. R&R, por favor! I know It's short, but I'll try to make the next one longer!_


	2. A Mocking Grin

Chapter Two

Mary Ann had been walking for what felt like forever. She was surely far away from the little house now, but where should she go?

"Maybe this isn't such a good idea after all," she muttered, glancing around. She was coming to a forest, and it looked dark and confusing inside.

"What wasn't such a good idea?" a voice purred from above.

Mary Ann was startled to see a cat's head floating in midair, grinning at her ghoulishly. "Wh- what are you?" she asked timidly.

The head raised its eyebrow, and slowly the rest of its body materialized out of nowhere. Its tail swatted lazily at the air as it replied, "My, you are a simpleton. A cat, dear. Cheshire cat."

"I… I am not a-a simpleton!" Mary Ann spluttered, put off, yet curious.

"Indeed?" The cat's silky voice betrayed no feeling as he cocked his head and added, "You didn't answer my question."

"Yes, sorry," Mary Ann apologized. "I'm going off on my own, you see, because I want to find adventure. But… But I don't really know what I'm doing," she admitted. "I'm a silly girl, that's what. You know, I thought…"

"That you could be someone special," the cat finished for her, his soft voice fluttering the leaves on the branch above him.

Mary Ann's eyes narrowed. "What are you?" she asked again.

The cat chuckled. "A friend, an enemy… A dream," he replied casually, swinging down to a branch at eye level with greatest ease.

"Then I'm dreaming?"

"We all are, are we not?" The strange creature again cocked its head and raised its eyebrow in a knowing expression.

"You're talking nonsense!" Mary Ann cried, frustrated.

"Of course," the cat answered as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "My dear, I am afraid that you will not like much of what you hear, in that case. " He paused thoughtfully for a few minutes before asking, "Can you stand on your head?"

Mary Ann opened her mouth to answer, but she quickly shut it again when she saw the cat balance its body atop its head in a comic yet disturbing manner.

"Forget it! I'll go on alone, thank you, and if I walk for a hundred years so be it!"

The cat was back in its normal position, resting there as though nothing had happened. Its grin seemed to be mocking Mary Ann as she turned on her heel and stormed away. She turned around once, but the cat merely shrugged its shoulders at her as it slowly vanished into the air.

_I hope this chapter was a bit better, it was longer at least. Please review and tell me what you think so far, I'll listen to whatever constructive criticism you give! By the way, this is my first fanfic!_


	3. A Short Stop

_Disclaimer: I don't own Alice in Wonderland. I think you were smart enough to know that already. _

_Sorry of you were previously confused… I was having some technical difficulty, so just ignore chapter three, okay? On with the story! Oh, and please please PLEASE review!_

The woods were indeed very dark. Unfamiliar noises from all sides made Mary Ann jump; the chattering and screeching of birds, the deep-throated howl in the distance. Still she kept walking, determined to prove the cat wrong. She was determined to prove everybody wrong, anybody who said she should just turn around and go home, which sadly included herself.

Turn right. Now left. Now straight. Right again. Straight.

What was that? A bit of golden light was spilling through across the path! Mary Ann, without another thought, abandoned the dark woods and ran as fast as she could into the light. She found that she was at a curious crossroads. One sign pointed one way, reading: _March Hare_, and the other pointed the other way, reading: _Hatter. _

"Well, it doesn't matter which way I go, does it?" Mary Ann said to herself. So she closed her eyes, spun in a circle, and… "Stop!"

She opened her eyes. She was facing the road to the March Hare.

"Here we go, then," she muttered, and hurried down the path.

The March Hare had company over. A long table stretched across the lawn, and the Hare and two guests were seated at one end of the table. Shyly, Mary Ann approached them.

No one acknowledged her presence, and after a few minutes of standing there like an idiot Mary Ann ventured to ask, "May I sit down?"

"Nobody said you couldn't," the Hare replied with a snort.

Mary Ann chose to ignore his comment and sat down, looking hungrily at the tea and cakes.

"Have some."

Mary Ann saw that the person speaking was a man in a ridiculously large hat whose hair stuck out from under it in all directions. He was wearing a kind of crazy smile on his face, not creepy like the cat's, but still odd.

"Um, thanks," Mary Ann replied, pouring some for herself. She saw that she was sitting at a clean place, but many other places at the table were dirty. "Maybe the guests all left in a hurry," she said quietly to herself.

"Bad manners to talk to yourself," the Hare declared, giving his other guest—a large, sleeping dormouse—a hard pinch on the nose.

"Just what I was about to say," the dormouse said, startled awake.

Mary Ann was pouring herself another cup of tea when she asked suddenly, "Can you tell me anywhere I might find an adventure?"

The man in the hat—Mary Ann guessed he was the Hatter—seemed surprised by this question. He looked thoughtful for a few minutes, and Mary Ann felt hope rise in her chest.

"The dormouse is asleep again," the Hatter said.

Mary Ann sighed. "Why bother to ask questions," she asked herself, "If you can't get an answer?" She was about to get up, steal a few of the little cakes, and turn away on her heel when the dormouse began to chant in its sleep:

"_Up, up above where the sun doth shine, a little bluebird sang me this rhyme: go back home to where the soul can live, for way up here to wonder is a sin."_

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mary Ann asked.

The Hare and the Hatter shrugged. "He talks in his sleep all the time," they said.

Mary Ann shook her head and sighed. "I really must be going. If I can't find an answer here, then it won't hurt to keep going, will it? I can't very well go back, you know."

The Hatter nodded knowingly. He looked as though he was about to say something that made sense, but all he replied was, "The moon is a grin."

"Thank you," Mary Ann said, ignoring the nonsensical comment, as she pushed in her chair and turned away.


	4. Up the Road, then Left

_Disclaimer: I don't own Alice in Wonderland…_

Mary Ann kept walking, putting more and more ground between her and the nonsensical tea party with every step. And still the song the Dormouse had been saying to himself in his sleep kept going round and round in her head, and for some reason, Mary Ann felt that perhaps there _was_ some meaning in it after all.

"Still trying to make sense of things, are we?"

Mary Ann looked up and saw the floating head of the Cheshire cat, grinning in an almost friendly manner.

"Oh! Hello again," Mary Ann said. She was almost glad to see it again, because walking all alone had been a little lonely.

"My dear girl, why do you look for something that can't be found?" the cat asked.

"What do you mean?" Mary Ann asked, "There has to be some sense in everything, doesn't there?"

"Doesn't there what?" the cat asked in a bored tone.

"You heard me," Mary Ann grumbled, wondering why she had thought talking to the cat would make her feel any better at all.

"Heard you what?"

Mary Ann looked away. "Now you're just trying to confuse me!" she said, just stopping herself from stamping her foot in frustration.

The cat's grin widened. "Of course."

"So you do know the answer?"

"Hmmm…" the cat purred thoughtfully. A front paw appeared, and the cat stroked its whiskers thoughtfully. "Well, you might find out for yourself, you know."

"How?" Mary Ann asked eagerly.

"Just up that road, and then left… And then I should think you'll see what I mean," the cat replied evasively.

"Thank you!" Mary Ann exclaimed, and she meant it sincerely. The cat had proved to be helpful after all! "Thank you _so_ much!"

The cat slowly began to disappear. Just before he was gone completely, Mary Ann heard him say with a dark chuckle, "If you're thanking me now, you're sure to curse me later."

Then he was gone.

"I wonder what _that_ was about," Mary Ann said, pondering the strange creature's parting words. But after a minute, she pushed all musings away and remembered the directions. "Up the road, then left…" Mary Ann chanted to herself. "Up the road, then left."

She hurried up the road with more energy than she thought she had left, eager to see what would await her.


	5. The Door and the Kitchen

_Disclaimer: I don't own Alice in Wonderland. Sheesh._

Mary Ann was standing just outside the smallest door she had ever seen. She was also standing in a very beautiful garden, but she barely noticed it, so determined was she to find a way through the door. She was sure this was what the Cheshire cat had been talking about! But she was much too tall, much too large to fit through. In despair, Mary Ann sat down next to it and felt inside her pockets. She realized she still had a cracker from the odd tea party in there, completely intact. She pulled it out and bit into it, looking out at the garden sadly. She would be trapped here forever, never knowing the way back to Mr. Rabbits or ever finding out what the cat had been talking about. She sighed, and then a curious feeling started to crawl across her skin. Suddenly, Mary Ann dropped the cracker and realized with shock that she had shrunk down so small that she could fit through the door!

Joyfully, Mary Ann turned the handle and stepped through, her heart beating as rapidly as the wings of a Jubjub bird.

Far away, Mr. Rabbit actually had opened his mailbox, by himself, for the first time in years. He took out the letter and hurried up the steps and into his kitchen, where he sat down and opened the envelope.

Every word he read made him increasingly worried. True, he had only spoken to the girl a few times, just to tell her to hurry along or to fetch his gloves, but he knew that she was in danger out there all alone. She could be… he stopped the stream of unhappy thoughts as quick as he could. Nose twitching nervously, Mr. Rabbit stowed the letter away in a drawer. He was about to think of a way to find out where the girl had got to when he got an urgent message by way of Bill, who came running into the kitchen huffing and puffing and holding out a small scroll bearing the royal seal.

Mr. Rabbit took it and tore it open, scanning the words quickly.

"Thank you, Bill," he said, handing the scroll back to the lizard and hurrying upstairs to fetch his things.

Bill stood panting in the kitchen a few minutes longer, wondering why Mr. Rabbit had seemed in more of a hurry than usual.

_Sorry, I know this one was really short, but I'm working on it. Thanks so, so much to those who have reviewed so far, also!_


	6. Hollow

_Disclaimer: I don't own Alice In Wonderland. No lie. _

Mary Ann found herself standing in a room with checkered tile, and everything was quite large. Of course, the latter was because Mary Ann herself was so small. A glass table stood nearby, and the room stretched on into a hall, which was dark and forbidding. Still, Mary Ann walked on. This must be what the cat had been talking about! Excitement built in her as she trotted down the hall.

She reached the end of it without much incident, but then, there she was again, below some sort of… chimney, it looked like. It was as though she were standing in a very deep well.

"Hullo?" she called up, but her voice didn't echo back to her. Instead, she noticed that a light was flowing in from some space above.

"I wonder how to get up there," Mary Ann said to herself. She reached in her pockets and found… Ah! Yes, there it was. So she'd had a few mishaps with people shrinking from eating her cookies, why not growing tall enough to see what was up there? Mary Ann congratulated herself on being brilliant and took a bite. A very large bite.

She felt like she had been grabbed by the hands and pulled upward. Yes, she was tall enough to _see_ out, but too tall to _climb_ out. She felt something bump into her, and she twisted around to see that it was a rocking chair.

"If I only nibble the cracker a little…" she said, and took the tiniest little bit, less than a crumb, and hoped she had timed it right--

"Oh!" She had, and she had fallen right into the little rocking chair, right now just her size, and felt it ascend toward the light. She saw a sort of tunnel that led to the light, with dirt floor and walls, and she leapt off the chair as gracefully as possible and pulled herself up. She crawled through the tunnel for a short way, and then she emerged into a world she certainly didn't expect at all.

A rough hand dragged her out into the open by the collar. The light hadn't been the sun at all; it had been a search lantern. The cool air that had felt good a minute ago was a wind blowing along with the wet rain.

"Wotcha doin' hidin' in a rabbit 'ole?" the man with the lantern growled, taking her roughly by the arm and dragging her away.

"Where are you taking me? I didn't hide in a rabbit hole! This is utter nonsense!" Mary Ann protested, trying to break away.

The man frowned. "C'mon," he said, and she tried her best to keep up as they left the river bank behind and walked until they came to a road. The man kept hurrying along, talking as they went. "Yer an orphan, right?" he asked.

Mary Ann nodded cautiously.

"Thought so. Where you from?"

Mary Ann paused. "Wonderland, sir," she said simply.

The man gave her a confused look but decided in the end to ignore that comment. The girl had probably been lost for a long time, her mind muddled up from too many night of being cold, hungry, and exhausted. The pair trotted along for some time in silence, until they came to a street that was a dead end. At the dead end loomed a large, long building with a few dim windows. "Last stop," the man said.

"Here?" Mary Ann asked. "Is this your home?"

The man chuckled humorlessly. "Not at all. This is where you'll live for now."

Mary Ann suddenly felt terribly alone. Her, in this huge place? It wasn't very welcoming looking, either. She shivered.

"Don't worry," the man assured her. His deep voice was kinder now, reassuring. "It's warmer inside."

Mary Ann nodded and followed him slowly up to the door. The man released her arm and lifted his fist, knocking hard on the door three times. Mary Ann heard it echo inside the building's front hallway, the sound as hollow as her heart now felt.


	7. A Crescent Moon

_Disclaimer: I don't own Alice in Wonderland. Whoop-de-do._

Mary Ann had come to understand where she was. It was a place for orphans, and it was not a very nice place either. Why, oh why had she left Mr. Rabbit's house? Why had she listened to that—that—Cat! Now she was taunted by the other children because of what she had told nearly everyone there—that she came from Wonderland, and she must get back to it. Talking rabbits were out of the question, as was any talk of her life. The grownups here thought that she was crazy, and they were constantly prodding her or asking prying questions. Mary Ann had never felt more homesick in her life.

"I just want to go home!" she had begged earlier that day. They had sent here to the dormitory without supper as a punishment.

"I wonder if I'll ever get home again," she whispered to herself now. Everyone was asleep, and she was sitting near the window, looking out through the grimy glass, up at the moon. It was a crescent moon, and she couldn't help recalling the words of the insane hatter she had met.

"The moon is a grin," she whispered. She sat, watching it, and the more she stared, the more it was beginning to look closer and closer, until it seemed to be inside the window, just a few inches from her face. Then Mary Ann felt a slight weight on her lap, and out of thin air materialized the Cheshire cat.

"You!" Mary Ann hissed, grabbing for it. It continued to grin infuriatingly.

"Hmm, what did I tell you?" the cat purred, stretching lazily. "'If you thank me now, you'll curse me later.' I believe those were my exact words, yes?"

Mary Ann glared. "I—This is all your fault! You lied to me!"

"Tsk, tsk," the cat said. "You only wanted an adventure, remember? You wanted to _be_ someone."

"Not here!" Mary Ann cried, her voice cracking. "I just want… I just want to go home!" she said pleadingly. "Please! You have to help me!"

Instead of answering, the cat began to sing. "_Up up above where the sun doth shine, a little bluebird sang me this rhyme_…"

"What?" Mary Ann interrupted. "I've heard that before somewhere, haven't I?"

"Have you?" the cat replied.

"Answer me!" Mary Ann pleaded. "Tell me I'm not crazy! I know I was there, I was! In Wonderland! You saw me there. Tell me, just once, tell me it's real."

"Ah," the cat said, its grin widening impossibly. "But that's nonsense, isn't it?"

"But—"

"My dear girl," the cat said, "You must decide. Is life not but a dream?"

Then he was gone. All that was left was a moon, grinning up in the sky.

And Mary Ann wept.

_Sorry, it's kind of short I know. It's sad, too… :( But I wanted to say how this is kind of based on how when I was little, my mom always used to tell me that the crescent moon was the Cheshire Cat's grin. I still think of it that way, too…_

_Well, just wanted to say thanks for all the reviews! Keep it up! _


	8. Rain and Waiting

_Disclaimer: I do not own Alice in Wonderland. Really, I don't!_

For the next week, it poured buckets and buckets of rain. Inside the orphanage, feeling trapped and more alone than ever, Mary Ann was haunted by her very existence. Every dream she had whenever she finally managed to fall into a fitful sleep was of that place she once called home, her Wonderland.

Nonsensical poems repeated themselves in her head until she gave up trying to please the matron and the other adults—then she chanted them to herself like a prayer. Soon no one spoke to her or bothered to call her for meals, because she was always sitting there by the grimy glass of the window, looking out into the rain. She refused to eat any of the bland foods they served here, remembering all the sweet, delicious things back where she came from: the sweet cherry tarts, the cookies she made, even if they turned out to be a bit… off, when it came to sudden growth spurts. She could still taste these things, smell them, in those wonderful, terrible, delightful, awful dreams.

How she wished, fervently, that she had never left Mr. Rabbit's, never met that deceptive, purring cat, never left the absolutely mad tea party—anything that would mean she wouldn't be here, in this world where everything made terrible sense.

Mary Ann decided on the eighth day of rain that she would get back, if it was the last thing she did. She would make it back, find Mr. Rabbit and apologize for her silly notions of adventure. If she could get back to that rabbit hole, she could crawl in, fall down, and then—perfect! Home! Simple as that. The hard part would be escaping without being noticed. The good thing was that Mary Ann knew if she was gone before anyone knew she'd left, there would be no search party sent out after her. They would all be glad to be rid of her, she was sure.

Now all Mary Ann had to do was wait until the right moment in the early hours of the morning, before dawn had broken, and then make her escape. She didn't have anything but the few crumbs in her pockets, so traveling light would be no problem at all. All there was left was to wait.

And wait, and wait, and wait, wait impatiently for dusk to fall and for everyone to fall sound asleep, one by one…

_I know it's short, but the good part is coming soon, I promise!! Please review!_


	9. The Rabbit Hole

_Disclaimer: I don't own Alice in Wonderland. _

_Sorry I've kept you waiting! My muse kinda took a vacation there. I'm still a little stuck, but oh well. Here goes nothing!_

Finally it was time. Mary Ann crept down the halls, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She trotted soundlessly to the front door, only to find it locked.

But she wasn't about to give up. She turned and hurried down the halls, and found the kitchen, where she knew there was a back door. This one, thankfully, was not locked.

She opened the door just enough to slip out, and then she made sure it closed as quietly as possible. She took a few more tiptoeing steps away from the building, then broke out into a full-on dash through the relentless drizzle. She ran and ran down the roads, watching for any sign that the rabbit hole was near. She ducked away from street lamps, diving into shadows, and kept running. She was wet now, soaking, but she didn't stop. She knew she couldn't. She had to get home.

Finally, finally. There—trees! Mary Ann almost cried out in delight. She dashed toward them. Mary Ann had to navigate through the trees, trying desperately to find that rabbit hole again. She dodged trees and slid through mud and crawled under bushes and through brambles. When she was about to give up, tired, shivering, wet, and hungry, she saw it.

There.

As though she was running in slow motion, she saw it come closer and closer. She dropped to her knees and darted forward, but time seemed to have slowed down. Then she heard a sound that brought everything back into sharp focus, a sound that made her blood run cold.

Dogs, baying in the distance, coming closer. A yellow light drifted through the trees, nearer and nearer. Without another thought, Mary Ann crawled forward on her elbows until she was in the rabbit hole. She crawled forward another inch, another…

She gasped as she suddenly felt herself falling forward, tumbling headfirst into darkness.

_Okay, maybe not so stuck as I originally thought. Please review! :)_


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